Getting in touch
There are lots of ways to get in touch and when you do our staff will be welcoming, polite and knowledgeable.
When you visit us
Head Offices
Our head offices are open as follows:
- Longmore House, Salisbury Place: Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm
- John Sinclair House, Bernard Terrace: Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30pm
Phone: 0131 668 8600
Both offices are located in the Newington area of Edinburgh and are conveniently served by a number of bus routes. Secure bicycle storage is available at both head offices. Limited parking is available to reserve in advance for visitors to the rear of each building.
Visitors to our head offices will be welcomed at our reception area where you will be asked to sign in. You will then be issued with a visitors’ badge and be seen promptly.
View our Salisbury Place office on Google Maps
View our Bernard Terrace office on Google Maps
Historic Environment Scotland Archives and Library
Our Archives and Library, based at John Sinclair House, are open Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 4pm and pre-booked group visits are welcome on Mondays.
Phone: 0131 662 1456
Our head offices and Search Room are closed on Good Friday, Easter Monday, the St Andrew’s Day Holiday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and 1 and 2 January.
Monuments in our Care
Opening times for the monuments in our care vary. You can find more information, including opening hours on the Visit a Place section of our website.
From time to time, we may need to close or restrict access to a monument or the archive. This could be due to adverse weather, damage or planned conservation works. Before you travel, please check our unexpected closures page.
Accessibility
We do everything we can to make our services available to everyone. We are committed to ensuring our key corporate publications are accessible. Please let us know about any requirements you have in advance and we will do our best to help.
We also publish a visitor Access Guide to the monuments in our care.
Through our websites we aim to comply with W3C Web Accessibility Initiative double AA standards wherever possible. More information can be found on our website.
When you call us
Reception staff at our head offices will answer all phone calls within 6 rings and give the name of the organisation. Answering machines in reception will only be used outside our normal office hours, on public holidays or in case of emergency.
Incoming calls on direct lines to our main offices and monuments in our care will also normally be answered within 6 rings.
Sometimes we may need to transfer you to someone better able to help. If we do this, we will also tell you the number to call in case your call becomes disconnected.
If no-one is available to take your call, we will return all telephone calls, voicemail or answerphone messages by the end of the next working day, unless we have told you otherwise.
When you write to us
We will reply to all general postal and email enquiries which call for a response within 10 working days. If we need more time, we will send you an acknowledgement and let you know when to expect a full response.
Services such as listing, scheduling and their associated consents have their own response times and more details can be found on our website. Our grant schemes also have their own response times, which can be found on our website.
We will make sure our responses are clear and easy to understand without any jargon.
When you ask for information
The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act and Environmental Information Regulations gives you the right to get information from public bodies. When you ask for recorded information from us we will respond to your request within 20 working days in line with the timescales set out in the Act. More information is available on our Freedom of Information pages, by emailing foi@hes.scot or by writing to us.
You can also find lots of information about our plans and services through our website or by phoning, writing or calling in at our head offices.
When you trust us with your data
We take all necessary steps to make sure that your personal data is kept secure at all times. We will keep personal data only for as long as it is needed for its original purpose unless there is a legal requirement to keep it longer.
You can access the information we hold about you and we will respond to your request within 28 calendar days. You can find out how to access the information we hold about you by emailing dataprotection@hes.scot or writing to the Data Protection Officer at Longmore House.
Telling us what you think
Your views are important to help us improve our services. We routinely engage with our customers and partners through day-to-day contact, meetings, customer surveys and more formal consultations.
If things go wrong and you need to make a complaint, details of how you can do so can be found on our website. We aim to solve problems promptly and will respond within 5 working days or up to 20 working days in more complex cases. If you are unhappy with our response, you can complain to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, an independent and free service.
Improving our Service Standards
We are committed to providing effective and efficient services. We review our achievements each year and these are reported in our Annual Report and Accounts.
Every two years we undertake a survey to gain feedback on our services. We use this feedback to continuously improve the quality of our services.